Brand building is often misunderstood by companies that want to increase their visibility, leads and therefore sales. Branding is not about advertising your company or brand to the public at large. Brand building must be focused on your products and/or services, otherwise you are wasting money.
Brand is really two things:
- Focus on helping your prospects solve problems. It is about the utility, quality and usefulness of your products or services.
- Customer service – how you treat your customers.
Seth Godin writes about being ‘Famous to the Family’. As he says, being famous to the ‘family’ is what the goal of your marketing efforts should be. ‘You don’t need to be a Nike or Apple or GE. You need to be famous to the small circle of people you are hoping will admire and trust you’.
Being famous – being recognized as a valuable irreplaceable brand to your customers (your family, your tribe) is more efficient. That should be your goal.
Let me warn you even this is not as easy as it seems. It takes tremendous focus.
It takes focus in making sure you delight your customers and convert them to becoming your evangelists.
Nobody cares more about your brand as a known brand more than your customers. Use your advertising money to focus on your products, services and customers (customer service). Be focused, you will get more clients at a much lower cost of acquisition.
